Allegiance
by firelordzuko
Summary: A Sith thinks back to Korriban, and to the sister he lost to envy.


Just a quick vignette on the shared backstory of my Sith Inquisitor, Loreius, and my Imperial Agent, Neruna Aquilla. The Jedi is a cameo from my Consular, Culos, perpetually stuck at level 1 until I can show him some love. Damn, I should really get back to uni work.

Fun fact: apparently paper isn't really a thing in the Star Wars universe and datapads are used for everything, with durasheets used for quick notes. However, writing on durasheets disappears quickly, which is why I went for classic paper. God, how I hate this franchise and its ridiculously overblown lore.

Obvious disclaimer is obvious.

* * *

**Allegiance**

* * *

When he thinks about it, it irks him that he can barely remember his older sister's face. Black hair, green-blue eyes, a brand like his – that is all, the rest extrapolation from his mirror image. They had looked similar, he remembers. Everyone had said so, though he had not possessed a mirror before the Sith had taken him to Korriban.

He says as much to his unlikely friend the next time they run into each other, in a dusty little shithole of a cantina on Tatooine. They normally avoid talking about personal matters, to the point where he wouldn't even know his friend's name if not for his articles in the Alderaan-based archaeological journal they both publish in from time to time. This time, however, his friend merely smiles under the veil covering his empty eye sockets. "I wouldn't know," he chuckles with the insufferable calm of the Jedi, "But to grow apart is part of life. You need to trust in the force and move on."

He orders another drink. His friend does not understand, how could he? He'd probably been raised from infancy at the Jedi temple. He and his sister had been older, teenagers, when the Sith had freed them and brought them to Korriban to learn the secrets of the Force or die trying. Oh, she had been furious! _He _had been the one with the Force swirling around him, not her, whose Force sensitivity didn't extend beyond somewhat unnatural luck. They had both known, implicitly, that she would not survive Korriban.

When was the last time they had talked, he wonders over his drink as his friend starts talking about some relic he had unearthed on Taris, dropping hints now and then about some sort of plague affecting Jedi masters. He wants his opinion, he realises, but is reluctant to reveal too much to the enemy. But Sith or not, he owes his friend that much, so he listens without being able to help him.

He hadn't been able to help his sister, either, and perhaps he had not tried hard enough. While he was regarded by his instructors with reactions ranging from grudging respect to aghast horror, her inability to manipulate the Force to perform the simplest tasks had drawn punishment after punishment. She had stopped speaking to him, at some point along the way, but he knew implicitly that she resented his success. But she had always been resourceful, the more cunning of the two. While he built electrical discharges around his fingertips and learned to form them into lightning to smite his enemies with, she dallied with one of the older and most promising acolytes, seemingly submitting to his whims.

He had been fooled, glad his sister had found a protector of sorts – at least until he awoke one night with the acolyte standing over him, a knife in hands. "You think too highly of yourself, slave," he had muttered, hatred and envy gleaming in his sickly yellow eyes. "You will never be Sith."

Then he had realised what was going on, and the betrayal hurt more than the knife would have. "Is that you or my sister speaking?" He didn't have to wait for a reply. That night was the first time he had killed a sentient being.

He had never seen his sister again after that. There had been rumours, of course, there always were: a lot of acolytes seemed to think that an elderly gentleman from Imperial Intelligence had come to take her away, perhaps for execution, perhaps as a recruit. There had been one time when he had nearly believed it himself, years later, when he had been tasked to demonstrate his loyalty by finding and killing several traitors among his peers. There had been a young intelligence officer assisting the inquisitor leading the operation. A drab grey uniform and a side cap hiding her hair, she had looked little like his sister: a different nose, cheekbones, and chin; and there had been no slave brand on her brow. But her eyes had been the same, a blue-ish green that shone with bright passion when she spoke of rooting out traitors to the empire in his sister's voice.

The Sith finishes his drink and pays for both of them, in spite of his friend's protests. He has business to attend to in Mos Ila, and he is certain the Miraluka ought to get back to Anchorhead before someone sees them together. The first time they had met, on Nar Shaddaa, his friend had claimed plausible deniability – the colours of his robe more or less gave his allegiance away, but the Force was apparently colour-blind. They bid each other farewell until the day the Force leads them to each other again, and exchange a few good-natured ribs about not giving in to the temptations of falling to the Dark Side respectively redeeming oneself, then they leave the cantina, five minutes apart from each other.

He steps outside into the sandswept little town. The nightly desert air is cool and clear, a welcome relief from the searing heat of Tatooine days. His speeder is parked behind the cantina, but he pauses in his steps when a sudden feeling of boding misfortune grips him. With alert eyes he surveys his surroundings and reaches for the lightsabre at his hip. At once the Force directs his gaze upwards. There, on the roof of that building – the gleam of a scope in the moons' light? Suddenly, a blinding crimson light ignites above the scope, and he is dead certain a tiny marker has appeared on his brow, proving his suspicions correct: a rifle is trained on him. He does not move. Lightsabre in hand, he stands there, ready to deflect any shot that may come his way.

Nothing happens. The laser marker expires, there an ever-so-slight ruffling of feet, and the sniper is gone.

When next he returns to the citadel on Dromund Kaas, there is a small package waiting for him, deposited by an unknown woman in an intelligence uniform whose face the scanners hadn't been able to identify. He takes it to his office, unsure what to do with it, and has half a mind to destroy it – there are many people who want him dead, and some foolish enough to try using a bomb. Eventually, his natural curiosity wins out over caution and he opens the package. It contains a new set of robes, robust yet smooth, in dark grey with red accents, and pinned to the top of it a note. Curt, cold, even insulting; printed on actual paper bearing the watermark of Imperial Intelligence, but signed by hand. _I don't know if you Sith are paid, but you should at least dress the part so the rest of us can avoid the fallout of your incompetence. You're still wearing the robes Zash gave you when she took you for her apprentice. Don't ask how I know._

He cannot help but smirk at these lines. Out of nowhere, all of his memories come flashing back, the good ones, what little there are, of playing in their first master's kitchens, of their mother, of his big sis dressing his wounds after he had foolishly insulted their master. His finger brushes over the signature at the bottom of the note, but it is not in fact a signature: where he had expected, hoped, perhaps, to see his sister's name, there is only a flourishing monogram of the High Galactic letter C and the number nine, and for a moment he ponders whether his sister still exists, somewhere, or if she has become but one more nameless cipher in the service of their glorious empire.


End file.
